On a recent IRC discussion Pat discussed Slackware's future and the restructuring that will happen for Slackware 11. Regarding the removal of Gnome from Slackware, he said: "GNOME is not easy to build into packages, lacks decent documentation to build, and requires many undocumented system changes for things to work 100%".

For me, it's not a matter of laziness, but rather of productivity. I use GNU/Linux and Gnome on a production machine. Time is money for me, and I simply can't afford to build or package Gnome myself. Don't get me wrong: I'd love to if I had the opportunity, since the hobby aspect of Linux, and Slackware in particular, is what got me started using FOSS in the first place. Once I discovered how much it could simplify my work and boost my productivity, I dove right in. Now, to keep that simplicity I need a distro that "does it all" for me.

If one day I need a server of some kind, or some other GUI-less setup, I will definitely use Slackware. I know it inside and out, and its stability is unmatched in the Linux world. However, without Gnome it will simply be useless to me as a desktop OS. And yes, I've tried Xfce and Fluxbox; I love many things about each of them, but Gnome *just works* for what I need.